


Fix You

by LLReid



Category: Gangsters in Love (Visual Novel)
Genre: Canon Lesbian Relationship, F/F, The Valentine Gang, dyslexic writer, non graphic sexual assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21522343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LLReid/pseuds/LLReid
Summary: Three days after a beautiful blonde was rescued by the Valentine Gang, a smitten Aurora takes her home to gather some things from her parents house.Fic inspired by Coldplay’s song ‘Fix You’.
Relationships: Aurora James/MC, Aurora James/Main Character, Aurora James/Natalia Robertson
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29





	Fix You

“I didn’t realise it was this bad,” Aurora said, sharply, whilst studying the scene of utter carnage in the Robertson’s living room. Shattered glass littered the polished wooden floors, glistening between the upended furniture like stars in the night sky. Bullets had torn through the wallpaper and shattered vases filled with now completely dead flowers. Dried blood clung to the beige fabric of one of the large couches, blood that she knew belonged to the small blonde girl standing at her side without a single shred of emotion visible on her face. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

It was a lie and Aurora knew it. She knew it because she’d been there before. She’d come home to find her home trashed and everyone gone. She had learned long ago that a lot of the heartbreak and betrayal that other people fear their entire lives, she had already faced. Parents either dead or off the deep end, for all she knew. Shuttled around and rejected time and time again. And still she breathed and slept. She woke up every afternoon and put on clothes. So she knew that when Natalia claimed to be fine, what she meant was that she knew she could survive just about anything.

“Those men didn’t— I mean...they obviously hurt you but they didn’t, you know—“

“Rape me?,” Natalia deadpanned.

All Aurora could do was nod in response as she tried to read the girl she’d actually come to like in the short time she’d known her. She couldn’t. Her face was completely blank, her posture doing absolutely nothing to give away the state of her mind. The gangster, however, saw red at the thought of anyone harming her. No one had told her it had been this bad. No one had so much as hinted that her playing games with someone who’d suffered through so much trauma was a shitty thing to do. Had she realised...she wasn’t sure exactly what she’d have done differently, but she knew she would not have been quite so theatrical on the night they’d met, that was for damn sure.

“If Chance hadn’t come in when he had they would have. They were—,” she cut herself off as a violent shudder surged though her body and she immediately averted her eyes away from Aurora. Despite the shudder, her face remained blank, and Aurora didn’t know if she should have been proud or concerned about the girls ability to keep going. Was it bravery? Or was she simply pretending like everything that had happened to her hadn’t actually happened at all? Either way, she was surprised at how calm her face looked — how steady her gaze, how erect her posture. The flannel shirt she’d borrowed from Aurora was too big on her and it was draped around her tiny frame artlessly, and her hands were nervously toying with the buttons. She looked like a young woman who was not at all disturbed or exhausted, but instead appeared to be rather serious. “Let’s just say I wasn’t wearing no panties that night for the hell of it.”

“Talia,” Aurora gulped. There was so much she wanted to say to her, yet no words could form in her mouth at the weight of what Natalia had just told her. For the first time in her entire life, Aurora James had actually been driven speechless. It was the first time in thirty-one years that she understood what it meant when people said that there were more experiences in life than a person would think for which there are no words.

“Don’t go soft on me now, Aurora,” the younger woman smiled, sadly.

“Fuck going soft. I’ll kill these bastards and your parents for leaving you to deal with this shit with my own two hands when I get close to them.” She actually startled herself with the intensity of the anger behind her words. She’d known Natalia for around seventy-two hours and yet she would already quite happily slaughter anyone who dared hurt her. Why she cared about her so much, she had not one clue, yet something in her chest physically ached at the thought of her struggling against the masked intruders who’d burst into her home.

In her line of work, Aurora had met all sorts of different people and extremely attractive women. Yet no one had ever enraptured her the way Natalia had. No one had filled her empty heart enough that the legions of women who routinely threw themselves at her and even her favourite alcoholic drinks had lost their appeal. It was like a person walks into a room and says hello, and then your life takes a course for which you are not prepared. It was a tiny moment (almost-but not quite-unremarkable), the beginning of a hundred thousand tiny moments and some larger ones. She didn’t know exactly what she felt towards Natalia, as whatever it was wasn’t anything like anything she’d ever felt towards anyone else, but she knew she would do absolutely anything if it meant keeping her safe.

Natalia cleared her throat and gestured for Aurora to follow her through the house. It might’ve been dumb for her to follow her blindly without her weapon drawn, hell, she knew Chance would have plenty of things to say about her trusting Natalia so blindly, but she didn’t care. She may have been the Robertson’s daughter but she trusted her. She trusted her almost as much as she’d trust Ash or Yoyo, had they to be the ones leading her through a strange house.

“I don’t know exactly what it is that you’re looking for but my parents office is in there,” she said, stopping at the top of the stairs to look at Aurora. “Their bedroom is just across the hall and mines is across the landing. If I’m gonna be staying with you guys until after this Ruby Heart tournament I’ll need clothes that actually fit me. Are you good with letting me pack by myself or do I still need constant supervision?”

Aurora scoffed, feigning as much irritation as she could muster to cover up the fact she was both enraged at the world for hurting Natalia and extremely turned on by the sight of her wearing her clothes. “Are you planning on booking it the second I leave you alone?”

“Even if I was, I’m pretty sure you’d catch me before I reached the front door.”

“Not a runner, huh?”

“Is anyone? Cause I’ve always thought that running is one of things that people pretend to like because it makes them look like they have their shit together.”

“Like vegetables,” Aurora smirked.

“And talk radio.”

The hustler snorted and shook her head. “Just keep your bedroom door open so that I can at least pretend to be multitasking.”

“You got it, boss.”

Heat rose to her cheeks as she watched Natalia disappear down the hall and into one of the rooms, and then she turned to do the same. She wasn’t entirely sure what it was she was looking for, yet she wanted to give the appearance that she at least knew how to be a functional gangster without a bottle of vodka helping make her decisions for her. Brad and Susan’s office room was a mess, thanks to the assholes who’d tore through the house. Papers were strewn around the small room, with car insurance policies and medical bills and confirmation of student loan payments all scattered across the wooden floors. The guys didn’t believe that Natalia was oblivious to where her parents had gone on ‘vacation’, yet Aurora knew that she truly had no idea...there was absolutely nothing that she could find that gave away their location. Even as she broke into filing cabinets and an old briefcase that looked older than she was, there was absolutely nothing. 

Yet as she rifled through the documents her eyes were drawn towards the shelf full of trophies with Natalia’s full name written on them. Natalia-Grace Robertson. There were golden first place trophies and certificates of achievement for spelling bees, piano recitals, figure skating, a middle school musical theatre club, and high school essay competitions, that all stood alongside a college degree in Literature with a minor in Spanish from Pepperdine University with her name on it. 

There were even a plethora of childhood photos that lined one of the walls. An action shot of a little blonde girl with missing front teeth in a pale pink sparkling figure skating dress stood out against all of the others, as it held pride of place amongst the baby pictures and school photos and the teenage photos that showed off teeth braces and pink hair. The entire room was practically a shrine to her and her achievements...so she couldn’t quite understand what had spurred them into suddenly abandoning her to Franco and his merry band of perverts.

Even just looking at the state of the house and the childhood momentous that filled every nook and cranny made Aurora cringe. What sort of shitty person would be thankful that someone else’s life had been completely upended so that they could meet? She wasn’t thankful that Natalia had been hurt or that she had been left, but she was thankful to know her. And she thought then how strange it was that disaster — the sort of disaster that drained the blood from a body and took the air out of lungs and hit again and again in the face — could be at times, such a thing of beauty.

“Find anything?,” Natalia asked as Aurora appeared in the doorway of her bedroom.

Aurora just groaned in response and flopped down on the unmade bed. The cheap Ikea sheets and Pottery Barn throw pillows were surprisingly comfortable, and the fact that there was a pile of underwear in various shades of white and pink piled up right next to her face calmed her right down. “You mean other than finding out you wear cute bra and pantie sets everyday?”

Natalia blushed immediately at the comment and quickly snatched a dark pink bra out of Aurora’s hand and shoved it into the suitcase taking up the other side of the bed. “Are you always this horny?”

“Always.” She winked at her, “it’s a gift.”

The blonde shook her head and rolled her eyes at her but, if her blush was anything to go by, she wasn’t annoyed in the slightest to have Aurora rifling through her things. From where she was laying she just watched her as she flitted around the cosy little bedroom that had obviously been hers for years. She noticed from her vantage point that her eyes weren't really grey, but a dark shade of blue, and that they sparkled in the sunlight. Her hair framed her pixie-like facial features and she bit down on her bottom lip when she was concentrating. And there was something graceful in her manner, but that might just have been the former figure skater in her, she thought.

It felt more like an odd fever dream than reality as she watched Natalia. It didn’t feel like her life at all. She was awake and out of the house before noon. She hadn’t drank with breakfast. She hadn’t woke up to a gaggle of women she couldn’t recall bringing home in her bedroom. And as she watched her, it felt like the bizarre dream was creating a nonexistent intimacy between, that she would feel all the next day after the dream was over, as though certain words had been said or actions taken which have not. So that the object of the dream somehow felt familiar, when, in fact, no real familiarity existed between them at all.

“You almost done there, gorgeous?,” she teased.

“Uh...I think so.”

“You know that if you’ve forgotten anything we can literally run out and buy it—“

“You realise that I’m drowning in student loan debt, my parents mafia debts, and all of their legitimate bills, right? I’m not buying anything,” Natalia laughed. “I mean, save for packets of ramen noodles. How bad can eating like a college student for a few more years really be?”

Playfully, Aurora tossed a balled up pair of white panties at her face to catch her attention as she sat up on the bed. The view, though. The view. It was undeniably exhilarating. “Do you really think I’m gonna charge you for eating food at home? You’re an honorary Valentine until you win the tournament. Foods free...and whatever is leftover from your winnings after we get back what your parents stole can be used to pay off your student loans.”

“Wait.” Natalia’s brow furrowed as her stormy eyes scanned Aurora’s face, as if she were trying to suss out if she was testing her or not. “Why would you give me the money?”

“You’re the one playing the tournament, after I take what’s mine the rest is yours,” Aurora shrugged as nonchalantly as she could as she tried to pretend that doing something genuinely nice for another person that she actually cared for wasn’t out of the realms of what she was used to. Yet it was so foreign to her that actually made her feel off-balance. She knew too well what it was like to tamp down your natural inclinations, to force a smile when you feel numb. The expression of emotion did not come naturally, so she had learned to fake it. To pretend. To display an empathy she didn’t really feel. And so it is that she had learn to pass, to look like everyone else, even though she was broken inside. Yet there she was, actually feeling something...and she had no idea how to cope with it.

Altogether, Aurora thought the sight of herself in the mirror was satisfactory, but not at all beautiful: a real smile had been missing since she was seven years old, a certain light about the eyes. She knew how different a woman looked when she was genuinely kind and had happiness, when her beauty emanates from a sense of well-being or from knowing herself to be greatly loved. Even a plain woman would attract her eye if she was happy, while the most elaborately coiffed and bejeweled woman in a room, if she could not summon contentment, would seem to be merely decorative.

“Why, though?”

“Is it really that difficult to believe that I can actually manage not to be a complete asshole all the time?”

“I don’t think you’re an asshole any of the time. Cocky? Yeah. Irritating? Absolutely. But you’re not an asshole,” Natalia replied, casually, and completely oblivious to the fact that she may have been the only person outside of the gang who didn’t think Aurora was scum. It meant more to her than she even knew how to articulate and ignited an unfamiliar hopefulness in her chest, to think that someone actually saw something good in her...to think that someone actually might like her without getting a taste of what she could do in the bedroom first. A calamity and a catastrophe had brought Natalia into her life — it felt like it had changed everything. It made her aware that she could not be completely indifferent toward her life. She could not simply give away her life, like she’d been secretly trying to do since her early teens.

“Didn’t I threaten to chain you up in the basement three days ago?,” she quipped, whilst turning to play with the magic eight ball on the nightstand to hide how flustered she was.

“That could be one of my kinks for all you know.”

Aurora snorted and almost dropped the old toy in her hands as a laugh rippled through her body. “That is not one of your kinks.”

“It could be,” Natalia smirked at her whilst zipping up her suitcase. “For all you know, whips and chains might really excite me.”

“Is that you propositioning me?,” Aurora teased. “Cause you give off more of a soft bondage and exhibitionism vibe, if I’m being completely honest.”

Natalia huffed. “Not the first time I’ve heard that.”

“Oh, it’s not? Got a habit of proving them wrong?”

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. A lady never tells.”

“Damn,” she had to fight to stop herself from grinning like a complete idiot as she got off of the bed and took the suitcase from Natalia and started off towards the door with her on her tail. The banter flowing between them felt so natural that it was easy for her to forget that she hadn’t even known her for a week...but she felt like she already knew her. “And here I thought the little lamb was about to chain me up and whip me just to prove she wasn’t the soft bondage and exhibitionism type.”

“Would that, like, knock a few hundred off of what I owe you?,” Natalia fired back.

Aurora choked on another laugh and turned to look back at Natalia, who was looking back at her like butter wouldn’t melt. She knew exactly what she was doing to her. “Are you always this smart mouthed?”

“Always. It’s a gift.”

“Throwing my own words back at me,” she chuckled. 

“That’s surprising to you?”

“Well...yeah! Usually no one can keep up with me.” 

“Ever give anyone the chance to keep up with you?,” Natalia asked, rhetorically.

“I don’t make it a habit.”

The blonde nodded and reached out to tuck a stray strand of Aurora’s hair behind her ear. “Seems like a lonely way to live.”

Aurora gulped, and in that moment she was acutely aware that like a slip of paper in the wind, something in Natalia’s nature eluded her grasp. Something in her manner made her want to confide things to her she’d never told anyone. Even painful things, shameful things. It was enough to make the tiny hairs on her arms stand on end and her heart rate quicken. She cleared her throat and looked away from her before she did or said something she knew she would regret. “You get used to it.”

“People might surprise you, is all I’m saying. Hell, you might even surprise yourself.”

“Yeah...maybe.”

She was genuinely more than a little enraptured by her, and yet Chance’s order to not lay a finger on her rang out inside her head as she began to wonder what her lips might taste like. It was the first time in as long as she could remember that she wasn’t immediately wondering what it might be like to sleep with a woman, that she was actually interested in more than what was between her legs. She didn’t quite know what to make of it, what to make of Natalia...and she knew that she should stop, but she didn’t want to. Telling herself that she was interested in the wrong person was like telling a person who had leapt off a cliff to be careful. 

She was already in midair.

**Author's Note:**

> What happened to MC at the beginning of GiL was pretty dark, but part of me has always sort of read between the lines and just made it darker to cope with my own trauma. I know that in itself is dark as hell, but as the GiL MC’s character is so different from me I literally had to make something up in order to relate to her at all throughout the story. 
> 
> I purposely kept the description of the sexual assault as non-graphic as I could, as I couldn’t actually write it with any more detail without triggering myself in the process. I went back and forth for a few days, debating if I even wanted to post this at all, but I decided that it was a fic I was proud of despite the heaviness at the beginning.
> 
> I hope you guys like it!


End file.
